The market-warping effects of cyber threats are evident in the shipping industry, where companies are lessening their reliance upon vulnerable satellite global-positioning systems, according to a report. “The risk of cyber attacks targeting ships' satellite navigation is pushing nations to delve back through history and develop back-up systems with roots in World War Two radio technology,” Reuters said Monday. The stakes are high, given that 90 percent of world trade is transported in ever-more crowded sea lanes, in which the risk of accidents due to failed navigation is a concern, according to Reuters.

Back to the future. "South Korea is developing an alternative system using an earth-based navigation technology known as eLoran, while the United States is planning to follow suit. Britain and Russia have also explored adopting versions of the technology, which works on radio signals,” said Reuters.

A new deterrent. U.S. engineer Brad Parkinson, known as the "father of GPS,” supports eLoran as a backup, even though it is not as accurate, according to Reuters. He maintains that the signal is 1.3 million times stronger than a space-based signal and is therefore a deterrent to deliberate jamming or spoofing, which involves the use of wrong positions. Says Reuters: “The cyber threat has grown steadily over the past decade as vessels have switched increasingly to satellite systems and paper charts have largely disappeared due to a loss of traditional skills among seafarers.”

Is blockchain ready to cross the chasm? Lessons from the internet. The impact of blockchain could well be enormous, but its full transformational impact, like that of the internet, will play out over decades rather than years, Columnist Irving Wlasdawsky-Berger writes. And like the internet, blockchain's transition to a more mainstream market will require the establishment of standards, killer applications and effective governance.

SECURITY AND PRIVACY

Marcus Hutchins, digital security researcher for Kryptos Logic, in front of his computer in his bedroom in Ilfracombe, U.K., on July 4, 2017.

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Cyber community shocked by U.K. hacking expert’s arrest in the U.S. The arrest in the U.S. on hacking-related charges of Marcus Hutchins, a British computer whiz hailed for slowing the WannaCry cyberattack in May, has stunned and divided the cybersecurity community. It also shines a spotlight on a gray area in cybersecurity, the often hidden forums where experts trying to protect corporate and government interests interact clandestinely with suspected criminals. The WSJ's Stu Woo has the story.

LEADERSHIP

Backlash over the memo drew a response from Danielle Brown, who joined Google in late June.

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Google’s new diversity chief criticizes employee’s memo. Google’s new diversity chief criticized the contents of an employee’s memo that went viral inside the company for suggesting Google has fewer female engineers because men are better suited for the job, the Journal's Jack Nicas reports. "Given the heated debate we’ve seen over the past few days, I feel compelled to say a few words,” Danielle Brown, Google’s vice president for diversity and inclusion, said in a statement. Google said in its annual diversity report in June that 31% of its employees are women, unchanged from a year prior.

MORE TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Ray Kurzweil

DREW KELLY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Singularity prophet tackles email. Ray Kurzweil's involvement in Smart Reply, an AI-based Gmail mobile app feature that offers suggested email replies, is just the first visible step toward a Google project aimed at understanding the meaning of language. "Codenamed Kona, the effort is aiming for nothing less than creating software as linguistically fluent as you or me," Wired reports. Mr. Kurzweil, known for popularizing the idea of singularity, maintains that computers will have a human-level understanding of language by 2029.

Not enough chargers, electricity for electric cars. Most owners of electric vehicles charge them overnight at home, but a few companies are looking ahead to an era of rapid adoption—and building a charging-station infrastructure. But therein lies another problem. America’s often-overtaxed power grids won’t be able to handle a large influx of new demand without careful management. “Chargers in parking garages or superchargers at rest stops are not a solution for charging EVs en masse unless we are OK with significant costs to upgrade distribution grids,” Jesse Jenkins, a researcher at the MIT Energy Initiative, tells WSJ Columnist Christopher Mims.

Apple plans Apple Watch with wireless functionality.Apple Inc. is planning to introduce a smartwatch this year capable of connecting to cellular networks, the Journal's Tripp Mickle and Ryan Knutson report. The new Apple Watch would have LTE capabilities similar to the data connection on a phone, which could allow it to access data, send and receive texts and make phone calls. Currently, the Apple Watch must be paired with an iPhone and use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to transmit data and texts.

Silicon Valley's vesters.Business Insider reports on the 'secret' community of Silicon Valley engineers who are paid gobs of money yet do virtually nothing save wait for their stock to vest. They are called "coasters" or "resters and vesters" and their existence may indicate certain inefficiencies in Silicon Valley's hiring practices.

Prosecutors seek 12-year sentence for Samsung heir. South Korean prosecutors sought a 12-year sentence Monday for Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics Co., after a months long trial over a national corruption scandal that has ensnared many of the country's high-profile figures, including former President Park Geun-hye. The Journal's Eun-Young Jeong has the story.

Bank blames coding error for alleged breaches of money-laundering law.The WSJ's Robb M. Stewart reports that Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd. is blaming a coding error for tens of thousands of instances of failing to report transactions through its ATMs and allegedly breaching money laundering and terrorism-financing laws. The allegations relate to the use of the bank’s “intelligent deposit machines,” a type of ATM that allows anonymous deposits of up to A$20,000 in cash at a time to be automatically credited to accounts.

EVERYTHING ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW

As Amazon tightens its grip on retail sales, a growing number of brands are pushing back by championing local retailers and trying to prevent online sellers from undercutting brick and mortar rivals on pricing. (WSJ)

Value investing is mired in one of its worst stretches on record, prompting concerns that the investment style favored by generations of fund managers is losing its effectiveness.

The Morning Download is edited by Tom Loftus and cues up the most important news in business technology every weekday morning. Send us your tips, compliments and complaints. You can get The Morning Download emailed to you each weekday morning by clicking http://wsj.com/TheMorningDownload.